Attack on Titan: Origins
by ProjectSCAR
Summary: A sequence of events beginning in 2016 leads to the creation of the Attack on Titan world.
1. Donald Trump Will Make Anime Real

In November 2016, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States.

Much of the historical record was destroyed when the world was overrun by titans. Historians continue to disagree about the policy actions of President Trump and the resulting effects on the economy, the middle class, and national crime rates. There is unanimous agreement, however, about President Trump's hardline stance against ISIS, his commitment to building a wall along the US-Mexico border, and his actions during the titan apocalypse.

Efforts to create the border wall and defeat ISIS were both stymied by stubbornness. The Mexican government was vehement in its refusal to pay for a border wall, even when threatened with economic sanctions. Victory against ISIS, on the other hand, was stalled by Trump's own stubbornness: he was hesitant to send US troops to the Middle East for fear of sustaining heavy casualties. It seemed that both issues would require out-of-the-box solutions.

Although drone strikes against ISIS proved effective, they were insufficient. Aerial dominance had its limits – a strong ground presence would be necessary to put an end to the battle. To combat ISIS with minimal risk of losing troops, the Trump administration consulted the US military and asked about the feasibility of using robotic soldiers.

The military had been working on combat robots for a long while and had tested two approaches to roboticized warfare. The first approach was to create gundam-like battle armors to be operated by trained handlers. Battle armors would require the physical ground presence of US troops, but the armor would afford them a high degree of protection. However, in 2016, the US military's battle armors were still rigid and clumsy. Furthermore, they were necessarily rather large, and this was deemed undesirable given that much of the battle against ISIS would be waged in civilian-populated zones. The enemy could hide within buildings, and it would be difficult for large mecha fighters to strike back without putting innocent lives at risk. The military's battle armors were not yet ready for the battlefield, and generals agreed that deploying them prematurely in the battle against ISIS would be irresponsible.

The second approach to robot combat was to create fully mechanical soldiers that could be controlled remotely. The remote approach had a couple advantages: they incurred no risk to US troops and could be made smaller than battle armors. However, they, too, had problems. While they could better fight back against enemies in a city setting, they were not substantially less rigid and clumsy than battle armors. Their communication and visual components were difficult to protect, and they could be rendered useless if either were compromised. Also, their latency was frustratingly long.

In the early 21st century, human ground troops were still far more flexible and effective than robots. Additionally, it would be a long while before mechanical soldiers of any kind could be cheaply mass-produced – in comparison to the creation of a robot army, the astronomical US military spending prior to 2016 looked tame. It was difficult to justify defeating the "JV team" of terrorism in this way.


	2. Stem Cells

A solution to the War on Terror eventually emerged from an unlikely source: medical science. Early in President Trump's first term, two scientific breakthroughs came together to revolutionize regenerative medicine.

First, a team of British biologists discovered how to control stem cell differentiation, the process by which stem cells become more specialized cell types (such as heart or skin cells). Stem cells had long been seen as a potential game-changer for regenerative medical techniques. However, they had also proved difficult to control. In prior experiments, stem cells often differentiated unpredictably and into seemingly random cell types, frustrating efforts to engineer replacement body parts. In early 2017, the British biologists finally learned how to induce stem cell differentiation into specific cell types. Buoyed by new government funding, the team devised new experiments with the goal of producing artificial human organs.

The British scientists forged new ground quickly, but there was still one major obstacle preventing practical regenerative therapy: the human stem cell supply. The state-of-the-art in stem cell production was to wait for a culture of stem cells to divide, producing more stem cells. This was a slow process, and unfortunately, the British scientists had not discovered a way to induce stem cell division. The second crucial medical breakthrough occurred when a team of American scientists revisited the 1952 Miller-Urey experiment, a hallmark result in abiogenesis. Miller and Urey mixed water vapor, methane, ammonia, and gaseous hydrogen in an attempt to simulate the atmosphere of early Earth (the "primordial soup"). Sending an electric shock through this mixture produced dozens of amino acids, essential ingredients of life as we know it.

The American scientists discovered how to produce more complex organic structures by modifying Urey and Miller's chemical mixture. Their first success was the synthesis of whole proteins in spring 2017, achieved by forcing the produced amino acids to form chains. This protein synthesis earned them new government funding, enabling them to produce other cell parts by changing the chemical mixture appropriately. The American scientists continued to extend their methodology, and in late 2017, they succeeded in synthesizing whole human stem cells. The gaseous mixture used to create stem cells came to be known as MU gas, out of homage to Miller and Urey.

During this time, the British scientists made great progress, too – they managed to grow certain human body parts, such as patches of human skin and heart tissue, in the lab. Wishing to put the fruits of their labors to the test, they contacted a handful of hospitals in search of patients willing to serve as test subjects. The scientists' outreach led to three successful regenerative surgeries: one to cure a patient with heart disease, another to strengthen the bones of a patient with osteoporosis, and a third to regenerate skin marred by third degree burns.


	3. Project SCAR

The international medical community was excited when the British scientists announced their stem cell differentiation successes. Their excitement turned into ecstasy when the American scientists announced their method of stem cell production. Both major obstacles to stem cell regenerative treatments had been eliminated, and for the first time, growing entire human limbs from scratch seemed more reality than science fiction. This reality manifested itself a few months later, when the American and British scientists, working together, succeeded in growing a new arm for an amputee war veteran. There were still some kinks to work out in the methodology; the new arm wasn't a perfect replica of the veteran's lost arm. However, it was fully functional, and attaching it to his arm stub went better than expected. Being marginally asymmetric proved far preferable to lacking an arm.

This medical success was widely publicized, and reactions from the general public were mixed. Some were thrilled by the prospect of stem cell regenerative treatments being used more broadly. Others had ethical concerns about the use of stem cell regenerative treatments in certain domains. Almost nobody disapproved of lost limbs being regenerated, but some skeptics voiced concern about the use of stem cells to treat brain ailments. They worried that stem cell treatments might fundamentally change personalities or cause undesirable side effects. Similarly, some were leery about stem cell treatments of major cuts – these injuries would heal on their own in time, but there was no guarantee that potential side effects of stem cell treatments would be temporary.

Amidst the public debate, the scientists had already succeeded in creating many other functional body parts, including legs, bones, hearts, and lungs. The fact was that stem cell regenerative therapy was the medicine of the future. Scientists and governments were in agreement that the benefits outweighed the risks. There was every reason to expect that stem cell treatments would revolutionize medicine, and the worst side effects witnessed thus far were the slight asymmetry caused by the veteran's replacement arm.

Teams of scientists from all over the world began synthesizing human body parts in their own laboratories and publishing their results. The various teams quickly started coordinating their efforts so as to cut down on redundant work – there was no need for five different teams to independently discover how to grow livers, for example. On the international stage, this degree of teamwork was rare. It seemed that the sheer magnitude of these medical advancements, as well as their clear benefits for the entire human race, fostered an unusual spirit of cooperation. By the middle of 2018, most individual human body parts had been successfully grown in a lab.

During this process, many more patients volunteered to help test stem cell regenerative treatments. The only negative side effect was slight awkwardness due to imperfect body part synthesis, and this problem was diminished quickly as scientists improved their methods. Regenerative medicine was progressing faster than anyone had hoped possible, in large part because of the impressive international cooperation.

Given how quickly regenerative medicine had advanced, some of the scientists suggested that it may be possible to cause people's wounds – even major ones – to heal automatically, outside of a laboratory setting. This was obviously possible for cuts, scrapes, and other wounds that heal naturally; for these injuries, the objective would simply be to speed up the healing process. However, these ambitious scientists wanted to use stem cell regenerative methods to heal injuries that the human body isn't naturally equipped to handle, such as severed limbs.

Several years ago, these suggestions would have been met with derision. But in just over a year, regenerative medicine had progressed from relative infancy to the point where new, functional limbs could be grown in the lab. The various scientists and governments working on stem cell regenerative methods were mostly in agreement that researching auto-healing techniques was a good idea. Leaders from the US, Europe, Australia, Russia, China, India, South Korea, and Japan held meetings to discuss how best to proceed. Their scientists had already worked together quite well in an unofficial capacity – why not make the collaboration official? The result of these meetings was an international team of scientists assembled to research Stem Cell Auto-Regeneration, abbreviated as SCAR. The research team was appropriately dubbed Project SCAR.

The first challenge faced by Project SCAR was that MU gas, being a gas, would simply diffuse into open air if not confined by laboratory equipment. A necessary condition for on-site stem cell production – and by extension, for SCAR – was to prevent the gas from escaping. The boiling point of MU gas was far too low for condensing it into liquid to be viable. The most obvious way of trapping the gas was to store it in a separate container to be carried on one's person. People would then need to somehow supply the sealed container with energy to produce stem cells, and then apply the cells to their wounds. There were numerous problems with this methodology. Taking advantage of SCAR this way would require people to carry containers that were liable to break and release the MU gas. It also seemed that it would only be possible to heal one wound per container of gas – and it wasn't clear that this would be enough to heal major wounds.

Eventually, one of the scientists had the clever idea to store MU gas within people's bloodstreams. He had this idea when he realized that MU gas did not react significantly with the components of human blood. If someone with MU gas in their bloodstream sustained an external wound, the resulting blood would automatically provide MU gas to the wounded area. The gas would not be able to escape due to being trapped in aqueous form within the blood. Whereas carrying around a separate container and then applying stem cells to a wound required effort, storing the ingredients for stem cells within one's blood would allow for true auto-healing.

There was just one obstacle: even if aqueous MU gas was present at a wound, producing stem cells and healing the wound would still require that the gas be supplied with energy. Auto-healing could not occur unless both MU gas and energy were automatically supplied in response to a wound.

Scientists noted that from the standpoint of blood chemistry, the main change that occurred in response to an external wound was that blood came into contact with air. This led some to suggest that the necessary energy could be created via an exothermic reaction between blood and air. Using a combustion reaction between blood and oxygen would not be wise; blood is naturally oxygenated within the body even when no injuries occur, so producing energy via combustion would also result in constant internal combustion. Since combustion was off the table, Project SCAR produced two chemicals that did not react with human blood: one would react exothermically with atmospheric nitrogen, and the other would serve as a reusable catalyst for this reaction. A complete SCAR serum could be created by trapping MU gas, fuel, and catalyst in aqueous solution and injecting the solution into the bloodstream. In response to a wound that draws blood, the fuel and catalyst would come into contact with gaseous nitrogen, causing an exothermic chemical reaction – not strong enough to cause any harm, but strong enough to induce stem cell production. The MU gas would produce stem cells exactly where the injury occurred, and the cells would begin differentiating to patch up the wound.

Project SCAR had arguably achieved its objective: they had created a blood supplement that would cause people's wounds to automatically heal. Theoretically, even severed limbs could be regenerated this way. Unfortunately, early testing revealed an important downside: this particular method of healing did not use resources efficiently. The various chemical reactions all took place in open air, so plenty of the heat produced by the nitrogen reaction simply escaped. Furthermore, although trapping the MU gas in aqueous form was effective, the presence of heat caused plenty of the gas to evaporate away as steam instead of forming stem cells. This was all problematic because a single injection could only pump a finite amount of SCAR serum into the bloodstream. Severe injuries might only partially heal before the serum was used up.

The last crucial breakthrough for auto-healing occurred when a few of Project SCAR's scientists discovered how to produce more MU gas in the bloodstream using chemicals produced naturally in abundance in the human body. Specifically, they learned that more MU gas could be produced by catalyzing reactions between vitamin D and several natural components of human blood. Vitamin D was a desirable reactant for these purposes because the human body produces it in response to sunlight, and a typical amount of daily sun exposure produces much more vitamin D than is needed for natural bodily functions. Conversely, the blood components used in these reactions are naturally produced by the body when it detects that their levels in the bloodstream are too low. Furthermore, the scientists were able to find catalysts that are not consumed in these reactions. Thus, they had discovered a way for the body to continue producing more MU gas in the bloodstream so long as it had regular access to food and sunlight. The scientists completed their renewable SCAR serums by adding the catalysts for the vitamin D reactions to the injection. In total, the finalized SCAR serum consisted of MU gas, reactants and catalyst for the nitrogen reaction, and catalysts for the vitamin D reactions.

One final problem never manifested. There was brief concern that if the vitamin D reactions occurred continuously, the chemical products – that is, MU gas – would reach harmful levels in the blood and act as a toxin. As it turned out, the vitamin D reactions needed a substantial amount of energy to occur, even in the presence of catalysts. Therefore, levels of MU gas in the blood would ordinarily hold steady. But when an injury occurred and the exothermic nitrogen reaction began, MU gas would be produced as needed until the injury had healed.

By now, it was spring 2019. Project SCAR was a huge success – in a little more than a year, they had produced a relatively inexpensive serum that could automatically heal the most serious of injuries. Experiments on rats and human volunteers with grievous wounds suggested that the SCAR serum was effective and had no major side effects. That summer, the SCAR serum was approved for public use, although those with existing medical conditions were advised to hold off on receiving the SCAR serum pending further testing. The commercialization of auto-healing prompted more ethical concerns, and plenty of people opted not to receive injections out of fear – fear that would later prove to be justified. But others delighted over the thought of being nearly impervious, and this led to about 15% of people in developed nations receiving the injection immediately.


	4. The First Titan

Project SCAR was remarkable in its benevolence: in spite of national, linguistic, and cultural barriers, everyone was working together for the greater good of humanity.

Or so it seemed. Almost all of the scientists of Project SCAR really did have the best of intentions, but this was not true of the governments backing the project. Specifically, all governments involved in the project instructed their militaries to closely monitor the scientists' progress and search for military applications of SCAR technology.

The US military, with its enormous budget, saw the most progress. Several of their scientists suggested that SCAR technology could be used to create humanoid giants – otherwise known as titans – to dominate the battlefield. They reasoned that creating huge human body parts shouldn't be fundamentally different than creating normally sized parts. Thus, producing a full titan seemed like a fairly natural extension of the work of Project SCAR.

For the most part, the scientists were correct: synthesizing large body parts was possible using the same methodology with more energy. Working in parallel with Project SCAR, US military scientists grew gargantuan arms, legs, bones, lungs, hearts, and other organs in their labs. But there was one organ that was not at all straightforward to faithfully replicate, gargantuan or not: the brain. The incredible complexity of the human brain continued to stump both Project SCAR and the US military. They succeeded in creating functional brain tissue, and in time, they managed to create a functional human brain. But the lab-grown brain was deficient and clearly inferior to the average human brain; tests performed on the brain indicated that it possessed animalistic, sub-human intelligence. While the military had the means to create a combat titan at any time, it would not be worthwhile – or, for that matter, wise – to do so if they could not control it.

While the US military was working on better replicating the human brain, the first titan came into being – but not as a result of any of their experiments. The titan genesis occurred when a thunderstorm hit part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. A lone hiker named Adam Everett was struck by lightning. At that moment, an enormous, humanoid body materialized out of thin air around Everett. He had become the first titan, and at 110 meters tall, he was quite imposing. The titan expressed an inexplicable desire to eat humans – there weren't many other people around at the time, but those in the vicinity were quickly devoured. While the other life forms in the area were frightened, they were left alone.

The military was deployed as soon as they received word of the disturbance. Fortunately, the titan was not stable on its feet, and it could only travel by slowly crawling. On the other hand, it quickly became apparent that the titan had auto-healing abilities, so the commanders decided it would be necessary to destroy the titan utterly. Initially, this seemed like a fool's errand – soldiers manning attack helicopters observed that their combined attacks weren't outpacing the titan's auto-healing. However, after a lucky strike to the titan's neck, the healing stopped and the titan's body began dissipating.

The titan's dissipation made it impossible to bring parts of it back to the lab for analysis, but it did make the following cover-up operation easier. The titan had eaten most witnesses, and the military reasoned that the few remaining witnesses wouldn't be believed. Due to the thunderstorm, people in nearby cities were unable to see or hear the commotion. With no titan remains to remove and few enough witnesses as to not be a concern, no official explanation for the incident would be necessary.

While the titan body disappeared in full on its own, part of Everett's body remained. One soldier found the remains of Everett's body and brought them back to the nearest military lab. With some difficulty, the military managed to extract a fingerprint from the remains and identify them as the late Adam Everett. A post-mortem analysis of his body indicated that he had SCAR blood; apparently he'd received the SCAR serum. They also discovered that his body contained cancerous cells. This surprised the military scientists – police had been sent to interview people close to Everett, and all reported that Everett was in perfect health.

The scientists produced the following hypothesis to explain the Everett incident: Everett had a previously unknown strain of cancer that remained dormant until activated by a large surge of energy; in Everett's case, this came in the form of a lightning strike. At this time, the cancerous cells started dividing rapidly. Stem cells produced for SCAR purposes mimicked cells near them, the activated cancer cells included. The result was the production of a large number of cancerous stem cells, which, like the "parent" cancer cells, began dividing rapidly. The excess of stem cells produced on Everett's lightning burns resulted in an excess of new, healthy skin cells – some healed the burns, and the others jutted out awkwardly from Everett's body. Via the SCAR process, a new body then grew from the skin protrusion, as if to regenerate an entire missing body. The titan produced in Everett's case was so large because the lightning strike supplied a huge amount of energy, hence many stem cells were produced. The titan sought out humans to eat to increase its supply of healthy human stem cells – the titan had been created primarily from cancerous stem cells, so its component cells were constantly dying. The strike to the titan's neck cut off communication between its brain and the rest of its body. This meant that it couldn't replenish its supply of reactant for the vitamin D reactions. Thus, it could produce no more MU gas, and its stem cell production ceased. In the absence of new stem cell production, the titan's cancerous cells withered away.

The scientists' hypothesis was right on the money, and experiments performed using Everett's activated cancer cells seemed to confirm that this was a plausible explanation. Among the scientists, the prevailing reaction was panic. Their experiments suggested that anyone with both SCAR blood and cancer could become a carnivorous titan if exposed to a sufficient amount of energy. Those with known health conditions had been advised not to receive the SCAR serum; however, Everett had seemed fine, and there was no guarantee that everyone had followed expert advice. It was possible that a titan could appear anywhere in the US at any given time.

The military decided to stay quiet about the titan incident while they researched further. It was crucial to eventually find a solution to this problem, but announcing it immediately would just cause needless panic. The probability of a titan randomly appearing among civilians was low, since the amount of energy needed for that was huge. Indeed, there seemed to be few plausible causes for spontaneous titan genesis. Other than starting new research, the only thing the military scientists did in response to the Everett incident was tell doctors to forbid patients with cancer from receiving the SCAR injection.


	5. ISIS

From the military's standpoint, there was one good thing to come of the Everett incident: they now had an especially easy way to create an entire titan body. The necessary ingredients were a soldier with SCAR blood, cancer cells, and a large blast of energy. On paper, this did not seem like a significant step forward, since they still had no way of controlling the titans – Everett clearly had not been in control of his titan. But crucially, the Everett incident inspired a viable means of titan control. A few military scientists observed that Everett had been found physically inside of his titan and proposed that they try to create brain link technology to turn a titan into an effective bio-mecha. Instead of perfectly imitating a normal human brain, it would suffice to have soldiers produce titan bodies and then control them through a brain link.

To this end, the scientists created a new type of biomass engineered to transmit brain waves. Connecting two brains with this biomass allowed the brains to communicate directly by sharing their respective brain waves. To put the biomass to the test, the scientists measured its efficacy by using it to allow two soldiers to communicate through thought. Fortunately, attaching the biomass to the soldiers' faces was sufficient. The scientists continued refining their biomass production techniques until the communication was crystal clear.

The next step was to expand on these results to allow a soldier to issue commands to a titan brain without being controlled in turn. The military scientists replicated a titan brain (albeit a human-sized one) and instructed a soldier to communicate with it using the biomass. The experimenters observed the communications and the results on the two brains – the titan brain, being less sophisticated than a normal human brain, demonstrated a degree of susceptibility to external commands. They concluded that one-way commands would be possible if the commander's brain chemistry were altered slightly.

These results prompted the military scientists to create a supplement for human cerebrospinal fluid. The spinal supplement served four purposes. First, it allowed the subject to issue commands through the biomass especially forcefully. Second, it blocked out external brain waves except for those containing sensory information. Third, it enabled the subject to consciously supply their blood with more of the reactant used to provide energy for SCAR purposes. And lastly, it caused the creation of the brainwave biomass during titan genesis, establishing a brain link between human and titan.

A soldier with SCAR blood, cancer, and the spinal supplement could create and control a titan body. External self-injury combined with a desire to supply the blood with more reaction fuel would result in the large surge of energy needed for titan genesis. This energy, in tandem with SCAR blood and cancer, would create a titan body, just as it happened with Everett. The size of the titan would be dependent on the precise makeup of the spinal supplement, since this determined how much the concentration of reaction fuel in the blood could be increased.

Cancer diagnoses had often brought about sudden ends to past military careers. In an ironic twist, soldiers with cancer were suddenly best-suited for the battlefield, since only they could take advantage of the titan's power. A small team of generals visited a handful of military hospitals to enlist the help of soldiers with recent cancer diagnoses. The generals spoke to a few dozen cancerous soldiers individually. After signing a non-disclosure agreement, each soldier was told about the new titan technology and asked if he would be willing to harness it to battle ISIS. All but a handful agreed to fight, and military scientists prepared titan serums for all 19 volunteers.

ISIS didn't know what hit them. They were of course aware of SCAR technology, and a handful of their fighters had received the injection. But auto-healing titans were wholly unexpected and most unwelcome. The combination of military intelligence and the titans' incredible power led to the speedy destruction of all ISIS strongholds. Their commanders were killed too quickly to be replaced, causing their chain of command to collapse. Once they were driven into a state of chaos, eliminating the remaining stragglers was child's play. ISIS was obliterated, and only two of the titan shifters were killed in battle.

The destruction of the Islamic State was widely publicized, and the 17 surviving soldiers were hailed as heroes.


	6. The Wall

The US had done well to eliminate the Islamic State while suffering only two casualties, but military scientists wondered if the two casualties could have been prevented. Both had been the result of unlucky cannon shots to the back of the neck. The titans were large and powerful, but their flesh was just as fragile as that of humans. The scientists sought to patch up this vulnerability by creating titan armor. For inspiration, they turned to the windowpane oyster. The oyster's shell is transparent and made almost entirely of calcite, which is usually brittle and weak. However, the chemical composition of the windowpane oyster's shell is such that it can withstand force ten times better than pure calcite. The shell seemed like a suitable material for titan armor, and none of its component chemicals were hard to produce.

After some experimenting, the military scientists came up with a way to produce an outer layer of armor during titan genesis. The calcium used to form calcite could be drawn from a person's bones. This obviously caused a short-term weakening of the bones, but as long as the titan shift didn't produce an excessive amount of armor, the calcium deficiency could be compensated for later by consuming calcium-rich food. The other calcite ingredients existed in abundance in open air – by catalyzing a reaction between calcium, oxygen, and carbon dioxide, the scientists succeeded in creating calcite. The scant remaining components of windowpane oyster shells could be provided by including them in a titan serum. Experiments conducted with one of the ISIS war veterans yielded a fully armored titan.

There was little doubt that the armor would be effective in battle, but the veteran titan shifter reported a drastic decrease in his agility as a result of the armor. Not satisfied with this result, the military scientists continued working so as to have the best of both worlds: by allowing a titan shifter to produce armor at a certain point on demand instead of being covered in armor to begin with, it would be possible to maintain one's agility while being able to protect oneself if necessary. By including the non-calcite ingredients of oyster armor in the spinal supplement instead of the titan serum, the scientists succeeded in allowing titan shifters to produce armor precisely when and where they wanted it. Their efforts culminated in on-demand armor capabilities for three of the other titan shifter war veterans. They now had four titans with armor abilities: one fully covered with armor, and three with the ability to produce armor.

It was now late spring, 2020. ISIS was gone, but there was still no wall along the US southern border. President Trump, his advisers, and top military scientists conjectured that the titan armor technology could be used to build a border wall. Laboratory tests had already confirmed that titan armor didn't disappear when a dead titan body dissipated. This made sense; dead titan bodies were (correctly) thought to decay as a result of their cancerous cells dying. Titan armor was not biological in nature, so it could not be affected by cancer.

There were some practical problems with this method of wall creation. The border wall would need to be 1000 miles long, and a few dozen titan shifters working together could not realistically create such a large wall on their own – even putting aside the problem of fatigue, 1000 miles of wall would deplete the calcium in their bodies many times over. They could enlist the help of other people, but they would all need to be granted titan shifting abilities. The titan serum and spinal supplement were among the US military's most closely guarded secrets, and using them so haphazardly was out of the question.

After some brainstorming, Trump and his inner circle devised a plan to build the wall while shrinking the US and Mexico prison populations. The first step of the plan saw President Trump and his advisers consulting the CIA, which had recently made some headway in their mind control experiments. The CIA could erase memories flawlessly and force subjects into performing certain simple tasks. The means by which this was accomplished was actually not so different in principle than the special biomass used to control a titan body – the primary difference was that it could be done remotely over short distances. The CIA reluctantly approved the use of their findings in the creation of the border wall on the condition that everyone involved have their memories of CIA secrets erased after leaving public office.

The Trump administration and the CIA decided jointly that only one person should be granted mind control powers. There was brief debate over who should receive this power, but Trump forced the issue, insisting that nobody built walls better than him. Besides, who better to entrust with this power than the president? There were still some objections, but Trump's mind was made up. Military scientists and CIA operatives worked together to create a special spinal supplement, which was then administered to President Trump. The supplement was an enhanced version of the titan shifter supplement which allowed Trump to harness the CIA's findings – and, incidentally, to control a titan body, should the need ever occur.

Soon afterward, President Trump arranged a meeting with the Mexican president. Trump explained in vague terms the US's new capabilities and provided an updated cost estimate for the border wall. Titan serums were cheaper to produce than the materials and labor costs needed to build a wall by traditional means, leading to a much lower cost estimate. The low cost, combined with a little subtle persuasion from Trump, convinced the Mexican president to pay for the border wall.

There was one more matter to discuss: many titans – and hence, many people – would be needed to create the wall. The US government and military had already decided that creating hundreds of titan shifters was not a wise use of the spinal supplement. Thus, a large number of mindless titans would be needed. The mindless titans could not be allowed to stick around after the wall was created, since they would cause widespread death and destruction. The solution proposed by Trump and his advisers was to force the mindless titans to trap themselves within the wall. Cut off from sunlight, the titans would not be able to bust their way out of the wall once they were trapped inside.

This solution would still require many people to become mindless titans. Trump's idea here was to enlist the help of death row inmates and individuals serving life sentences in prison. These prisoners would be given the option to assist in the creation of the wall. If they declined, their memories of the proposal would be erased, and life would continue for them as normal. The Mexican president agreed that this solution was acceptable.

Subsequently, Trump visited prisons across the US and Mexico, explaining his proposal to large groups of inmates. Many did not accept, and simply returned to prison life as usual after having their memories erased. But across the two countries, Trump found many inmates who agreed to the plan. Many of them figured they had little to lose – they'd be stuck in prison for the rest of their lives anyway, and helping with the wall meant that they might someday escape if the wall was broken.

The US military scientists worked out the logistics involved in creating the necessary titan serums. The precise chemical makeup of the serums would depend on how large the wall should be. Through experimentation, the scientists had learned that titans taller than about 15 meters were unstable. This, apparently, was because they could not produce new cells quickly enough to replace dead ones. Titan cells were cancerous and died quickly, so a titan could not last long unless it produced new stem cells quickly enough. This required constant exposure to sunlight so that MU gas production could continue via the vitamin D reactions. The problem for large titans was that their surface-area-to-volume ratios were lower than those of smaller titans. Their sunlight intake was proportional to their surface area, while their minimum stable stem cell production rate was proportional to their volume; thus, beyond a certain size, titans would lose cells faster than they could be replaced.

President Trump decided that 15 meters was a fine height for the border wall, so the scientists based their cost estimates around this height. At the recommendation of Trump's advisers, the scientists modified their original titan armor formula so that the mindless titans would produce armor that appeared rocky and opaque instead of transparent. The military scientists sent the Mexican government a final price tag, Mexico provided the money, and the scientists produced the titan serums. The preparations for the wall construction were complete.

That summer, Trump, the scientists, and the volunteer inmates ventured to the US southern border together. The inmates all received titan injections and Trump used his persuasive powers to manipulate them into forming the border wall. The US and Mexican governments worked to make sure no news outlets obtained any video footage of the wall's construction, and after each length of the wall was built, Trump erased all memory of the construction from the minds of people nearby. Once construction was complete, the people living near the border were confused as to how the wall had suddenly appeared. The large majority of people who hadn't been near the construction, on the other hand, hailed the construction of the wall as a success. Unbeknownst to most people, Trump had significantly reduced the prison populations of both the US and Mexico. He had built his 15 meter border wall, roughly 10 feet higher than initially planned. And Mexico had paid for it.

By then, it was fall 2020. Helped by the successes with ISIS and the border wall, President Trump won reelection easily that November.


	7. Apocalypse

As it turned out, cancer was much more prevalent than anyone had thought.

To this day, scientists aren't 100% sure how this came to be. The most popular hypothesis is that cell phones were primarily responsible. In any case, the scientific consensus is that the cause lay somewhere in 21st century electronics. Due to society's high degree of dependence on electronics during this time period, the prevalence of cancer in developed nations was quite high, usually exceeding 50%. This pandemic went unnoticed because electronics caused users to contract the Everett strain of cancer, which stayed dormant in the body until activated by a large surge of energy.

This meant that many of those who'd received the SCAR serum were liable to become mindless titans. Ordinarily, this might not have caused a disaster. In their day-to-day lives, almost nobody encountered bursts of energy strong enough to induce titan genesis.

But then it happened: in spring 2022, Earth witnessed the most intense solar flare in recorded history.

The flare was accompanied by a CME (that is, coronal mass ejection) stronger than any ever observed – the CMEs responsible for the 1989 Quebec power outage and even the 1859 Carrington Event were weak in comparison. Whereas scientists usually detect incoming CMEs at least half a day in advance, they had a mere several hours' notice this time.

Scientists had long warned that a powerful solar storm could disrupt the developed world. Governments had crafted detailed plans of action for such an occurrence. But there were two confounding factors here. First, this CME was much faster and stronger than they were prepared for. Most individuals and organizations only had time to take rudimentary precautions, if they even heard about the CME before it hit. A significant number of communication lines worldwide were shut down because the power grids couldn't be taken offline quickly enough.

The second confounding factor was more severe: while even the most intense of CMEs cannot realistically cause bodily harm at Earth's surface, this geomagnetic storm _did_ provide enough energy to induce titan genesis. About 65% of the US population had dormant cancer cells, and by this time, some 35% of the population had received the SCAR serum. Of those with both cancer and SCAR blood, about half were exposed to enough energy for a titan shift. The result was that about 11% of the US population instantly became mindless titans. Most nations faced similar problems. Those nations experiencing night time when the CME arrived weren't hit nearly as hard – for reference, it was around 11 in the morning in Washington, D.C. when the CME hit Earth. But the geomagnetic storm was powerful enough that titan genesis occurred everywhere in the world. Even in China, on the other side of the world from Washington, about 2% of the population became mindless titans.

Human civilization was in a sorry state. Every major country saw scores of its citizens being devoured by titans, and the damaged communications systems made it difficult for governments to organize any kind of resistance. Many government officials had become titans themselves. Militaries weren't able to fight back effectively either because, somewhat ironically, military bases were hit harder than most civilian zones; soldiers had received the SCAR serum at a much higher rate than the general population, so the concentration of titans in the world's military bases was especially high. By and large, the world had fallen to the titans.

The only effective counterattack in the world began along the eastern coast of the US. President Trump and the 17 American titan shifters had all received spinal supplements. They were turned into titans by the CME, but unlike everybody else, they were able to control their titans. Trump was a little confused at first – he'd never experienced a titan shift before – but he quickly regained his composure and realized he could use his mind control abilities to command the titans razing Washington, D.C. Figuring that the titan apocalypse was probably widespread, and that he alone could not defeat all of the titans, Trump decided to rendezvous with the other 17 titan shifters as soon as possible. By a stroke of luck, they were currently stationed at a military base in nearby Maryland. Trump grabbed his family and set out for the base on foot, leaving piles of dead titans in his wake.

In contrast to every other military base in the world, the base in Maryland quickly gained control of the situation, thanks to the presence of the 17 titan shifters. When President Trump arrived, he, the titan shifters, and the other survivors began devising a plan to counter the titan threat. It was known that the titans had formed from humans and therefore had humans inside of them. Ideally, they would be able to save the people inside by extracting them from their titan bodies. Alas, the group decided this would be more effort than it was worth; safely removing people from the titans would require cautious, delicate combat on their part. In the interest of saving as many lives as possible, the group decided instead to kill the mindless titans whenever and wherever possible.

The group's plan of action was as follows: the survivors at the military base (titan shifters excluded) would battle the titans primarily from the air, where the titans couldn't reach them. They would deploy as many fighter planes as possible and deploy to other nearby military bases. Once there, they would kill all titans present to reclaim control of their bases. Survivors would join their cause, and they would stock up on food and fuel before moving out to other nearby bases. The titan shifters would split up amongst the different groups and join the battle against the titans on the ground. Once they had built up their air force sufficiently, a handful of groups would begin liberating civilian zones instead of more military bases. Slowly but surely, the counterattack would expand their power and territory.

After a month, the improvised military force had eliminated most titans in the US and rescued 1.2 million Americans. The situation was not stable – titans continued to enter the US from its northern border, and some of the taller titans managed to climb over the Mexican border wall. President Trump and his remaining advisers decided the best long-term course of action was to relocate all survivors to a place the titans could not easily reach. After much discussion, they decided the British Isles were an ideal location. The isles were large enough to comfortably house all survivors, and yet small enough that eliminating all titans on the isles would not take long. Best of all, once the titans on the isles had been killed, the surrounding ocean would make it difficult for other titans to invade. With some military presence positioned along the coasts, inhabiting the British Isles would be safe.

Preparations for the mass migration began immediately. The first order of business was to transport the survivors to the east coast. The titans had taken no interest in automobiles, so there was easily enough wheeled transportation to take everybody east. The next task was finding a way to transport everyone across the Atlantic Ocean. Planes would allow for quick travel, but only a fraction of the survivors could fit on all US planes combined. Large ships – such as cruise ships, cargo ships, and aircraft carriers – were slower but could carry many more people at once. In total, all large US ships put together could carry the 1.2 million survivors to the British Isles. The civilian survivors would board the ships and depart for the isles; at the same time, President Trump, the other titan shifters, and most of the improvised air force would travel ahead via plane to wipe out the titans on the isles.

As US ships gathered along the east coast and people stocked up on enough food and fuel for the voyage, President Trump dispatched several special task forces to retrieve whatever information they could on the titans. Information on the SCAR serum had been public for a long time now, so recovering that information was easy; it could be found in most hospitals. The task force sent to recover information on the titan shifter spinal supplement had no such luck – the files detailing how to prepare the supplement had perished in a fire that occurred shortly after the titan apocalypse began. The last task force tried and failed to retrieve information on the CIA's mind control experiments. The information still existed on CIA computers, but it was encrypted and nobody alive knew the encryption key. The survivors had to make due with information on the SCAR serum; producing more titan shifters and giving other people mind control abilities would not be possible.

President Trump and his advisers decided they had done all they could. Without further ado, the survivors boarded their ships and planes and departed for the British Isles. Eliminating the titans on the isles proved easier than expected, in no small part because Trump was getting better at using his mind control powers. The isles were cleared for human habitation a full week before the ships arrived. There were almost no British or Irish survivors, but most of the infrastructure on the isles had been left intact. Settling on the British Isles would not be difficult.


	8. Brave New World

The surviving Americans and Brits had earned themselves a breather. However, while their situation was now stable in the short term, there were concerns that they could be decimated by titans again if they weren't careful. Among the survivors were many with SCAR blood who hadn't become titans because they didn't have cancer or were sufficiently shielded from the CME. These individuals constituted about 35% of the pre-apocalypse population, and roughly half of those people had become mindless titans; however, the remaining humans with SCAR blood survived at a higher rate than those without SCAR blood due to their auto-healing powers. The result was that a full third of the 1.2 million survivors had SCAR blood. Presumably, many of the survivors with SCAR blood had dormant cancer, meaning that they were liable to become mindless titans. Doctors had had no time to develop techniques to detect dormant cancer – to be safe, the new government had to assume that all 400,000 people with SCAR blood could become titans at a moment's notice. These people would need to be quarantined.

How, exactly, could they be quarantined, though? They would only be threatening if they unexpectedly became mindless titans, and in this case, they would be able to escape from any normal means of containment. It was also difficult to see how these people could be quarantined humanely; there was no telling how long the quarantine would last, and it would be cruel to deny these many thousands of people the right to lead happy and productive lives.

After a week of brainstorming and weighing the merits of various plans, the new Trump government agreed upon a solution. Using his mind control powers, Trump would create a walled world for the people with SCAR blood to inhabit, similar to how he'd built the Mexican border wall. The walls would serve both to entrap them and to protect them from the titans that now roamed most of the earth.

There were still a plethora of details to work out. First, the new government decided that once the people with SCAR blood were inside the walls, their memories of the old world must be erased. Otherwise, some of them would inevitably seek to return to outside civilization, potentially compromising the quarantine process.

It would also be necessary to limit their technology. Technological advancement would eventually allow those within the walls to battle the titans and venture outside. The reinvention of electronics, in particular, had to be suppressed. Doctors still had not had much time to investigate the causes of the mass titan genesis, but many of them suspected that dormant cancer had something to do with electronics. There was a realistic chance that if the walled people developed electronics, dormant cancer would become fiercer and more widespread among them – if another powerful CME occurred then, it was possible that the people would become especially large titans and escape from the walls.

In order to limit the technology of the walled world, an authoritarian government would be needed, and the leaders would need both knowledge of the outside world and the power to suppress innovation. To this end, it made most sense for the walled world to be ruled by a monarch with Trump's mind control powers.

Where would the walls be built, and how? Mainland Europe seemed most promising. The mainland was conveniently nearby and was still overrun with titans that could be manipulated into forming the walls. Trump and his advisors decided, somewhat arbitrarily, to center the walled world in southeastern Poland. The precise location wasn't terribly important, but centering it in this general vicinity meant that the walled people wouldn't be able to see the ocean when standing on any part of the walls.

The Trump government decided that the walled world should consist of three circular walls. Having three walls provided a decent buffer against the possibility of a titan breach. A few advisers floated the idea of building an outermost fourth wall trapping some mindless titans within the walled world. This idea was ultimately shot down, however. Even disregarding the logistical challenges involved in putting mindless titans within the wall during or after construction, it wasn't clear that a fourth wall would offer much benefit. Trump's advisers conjectured (correctly) that titans would gravitate toward the walled people regardless of whether there was a fourth wall preventing them from wandering away.

One issue remained: how could the walls be built tall enough to keep out titans? The walls would be no taller than the titans used to create them, so some of the remaining mindless titans would be able to just climb over.

The Trump government's solution to this problem was surprisingly simple. The tallest remaining mindless titans were about 15 meters tall – larger titans were unstable, and the mindless titans in excess of 15 meters had had plenty of time to dissipate by now. But while titans taller than 15 meters were not stable, that did not mean they couldn't exist; it just meant that their time was limited. Furthermore, from the files they retrieved before escaping the former US, they knew that larger titans could be produced by increasing the concentrations of reactants in titan serums. Thus, it would be easy to create short-lived colossal titans. Trump and his advisers decided that a height of about 60 meters would be fine. The 60 meter walls would extend 10 meters underground for increased stability, leaving 50 meters of wall above ground level. A height of 50 meters above the ground was deemed desirable because it served as a nice hedge against titan creativity: if a 15 meter titan stood on the shoulders of another 15 meter titan and then jumped, the top of a 50 meter wall would still be a little out of reach.

The planning for the creation of the walled world was now complete. The surviving scientists reviewed the titan files to mass produce armored colossal titan serums. Trump then got to work. Using his mind control powers, he persuaded mindless titans on mainland Europe to inject themselves with the serums, turning them into even larger titans with the ability to produce armor. Once they were colossal, Trump made the titans dig out circular, 10-meter-deep moats, allowing the walls to extend 10 meters underground. Lastly, he made the titans stand in the moat in formation and harden to create the three walls. Thus, the walled world was born.

Once Trump returned to the British Isles, it was clear that he had overworked himself. Despite his impressive stamina, Trump was now 76 – using his powers on so many titans for an extended period of time had taken its toll. Doctors gave him less than a week to live. With his dying breaths, Trump implored his wife and children to see his vision of the future to fruition. The people with SCAR blood still needed to be relocated within the walls. They had to have their memories of the outside world erased. To maintain long-term peace, it was imperative that technological innovation within the walls be suppressed. In the meantime, use of electronics on the British Isles should be forbidden until dormant cancer was better understood. Scientists on the isles should continue to study SCAR blood and dormant cancer – someday, hopefully, it would be possible to end the quarantine and incorporate the walled people back into society.

After clarifying his vision of the future, Donald Trump passed away. He had saved his people from the titan apocalypse and created a new world for them to live in. In recognition of these feats, history remembers him as the God Emperor.

After Trump's death, his family found itself in a tough situation: to fulfill Trump's vision of civilization both on the British Isles and within the walls, it would be necessary to split up. This would probably be good-bye forever. They decided that one of the eldest three children would inherit Trump's mind control power and become the monarch of the walled world. Of the four other Trump children, one of the eldest three would be chosen to accompany the monarch and live within the walls. The other four family members would remain on the British Isles and establish a new oligarchic government, with the aim to slowly revert back to a democratic republic as the immediate danger posed by the titans and dormant cancer subsided.

It was too difficult to decide who would stay, who would leave, and who would inherit Trump's mind control abilities; ultimately, their tasks were decided randomly. Ivanka would inherit her father's powers and serve as the first queen of the walled world, and Donald Jr. would follow her. The two of them relocated their families and all people with SCAR blood within the walls. Once inside, Ivanka made all people with SCAR blood forget about the outside world. A handful of families proved impervious to memory erasure. The monarchy worked to secure these families' cooperation as quickly as possible, offering positions of nobility in return.

Ivanka was not confident with her mind control powers yet, and feared that the memory erasure had been imperfect; it had already proved wholly ineffective on a handful of individuals. Out of fear that certain details might trigger memories of the past, Ivanka and Donald Jr. made a few seemingly trivial changes. First, they changed the calendar year. To reflect the walled world's inhibited technological state, they semi-randomly decided the new calendar year would be 738. Second, they changed the royal surname. Instead of being the Trump family, they were now the Reiss family. There were plenty of other details that could be changed to further reduce the risk of memory triggers, but most of these were deemed unfeasible.

In time, Ivanka concluded that her mind control abilities weren't as strong as her father's. She continued to practice using them and achieved competency, but she was quite sure that she wouldn't have been able to facilitate the creation of the walls. The mind control spinal supplement prepared by the CIA had been tailor-made for her father's brain chemistry. She was able to harness its power because her brain structure and chemistry were sufficiently similar to his. But her brain was not a replica of his, so she couldn't use it nearly as effectively. Ivanka feared that as more generations of wall monarchs came and went, the genetics of Donald Trump would be diluted to the point that the mind control powers could not be used at all. Hopefully the quarantine would end before that day came.


	9. Grisha

On the isles, scientists continued to study the causes of dormant cancer as well as the heritability of dormant cancer and SCAR blood. Both were necessary for spontaneous titan genesis, so if either was found to not be heritable, then the quarantine could end when the first generation of walled people was dead.

The scientists encountered poor luck on both fronts. Research on electronics proceeded very slowly, so the reintroduction of electronics to society could happen only very gradually. Even worse, dormant cancer and SCAR blood both showed signs of being heritable. Naively, this should not have been possible – neither made any changes at a genetic level. But the potential signs of heritability were there, and explanations were not forthcoming. Was it because SCAR blood and dormant cancer actually _did_ alter genes? Or perhaps because fetuses received SCAR blood and dormant cancer cells from their mothers through their placentas? Either way, the result was the same: the quarantine could not be ended by passively waiting it out.

In response to these findings, scientists began working furiously on a means of neutralizing the SCAR serum. They felt almost guilty about trying to undo the impressive work of Project SCAR, but auto-healing would not do someone much good if they eventually became a mindless titan as a result. Decades passed with no progress made. The prohibition of electronics was a serious limitation on the scientists; their training and modern medical literature did not prepare them to practice medicine using technology of decades past. The next several generations of doctors on the British Isles weren't blindsided by the technological regression in the way that the first generation was, but neither were they optimally prepared to practice medicine in the new world – their parents didn't know exactly what they were doing and therefore didn't know how best to teach their children. The people of the isles had access to all medical knowledge from the old world, but medical practices had to be largely redeveloped.

One young doctor went against the grain by trying to cure cancer instead of neutralizing SCAR blood. This doctor, Grisha Yeager, was from a noble family with a distant relation to the royal Trump family. The conventional wisdom was that neutralizing SCAR blood would be easier than curing cancer, but Grisha wasn't convinced. Either way, putting all one's eggs in one basket by focusing exclusively on neutralizing SCAR blood seemed unwise. Against the better judgment of his peers, Grisha spent the next several years working on a cure for cancer.

Eventually, Grisha became somewhat disillusioned with his efforts. He didn't lack motivation, and he continued to think that curing cancer was the more promising approach to ending the quarantine. Indeed, he had even seen some positive results. Rather, he was disillusioned because he realized that a cancer cure developed on the British Isles might not cure the cancer lying dormant within the walled people. All of his tests had been performed on cancer cells originating from the new British Isles civilization. But the people on the isles and within the walls had by now grown apart for almost a century – it was possible that the strains of cancer in the walled world had evolved so as to be very different from cancer found on the isles. To develop a cure, he would need samples from the people of the walled world.

Visiting the walled world was forbidden. It was crucial that the people inside be kept ignorant about the outside world. After much deliberation, Grisha decided to abandon his life on the isles to move to the walled world and continue working on a cancer cure. His reasons weren't entirely benevolent – he really did want to save the people of the walled world, but he was driven just as much by his ego, which compelled him to finish his cure and prove wrong the scientists who had scorned his methods.

Making the journey to the walled world would not have been possible for most people due to the mindless titans wandering mainland Europe. Grisha was different, however. It had become tradition on the isles for the titan shifting abilities to be passed down through noble families, and Grisha was one of the recipients. The British Isles civilization still had not reproduced the US military's spinal supplement, and as such, they could not create new titan shifters. They could, however, preserve their number of titan shifters by passing the abilities on when the old shifters died. With his titan shifting powers, Grisha could reach the walled world relatively safely.

Per his plan, Grisha disappeared from the isles one night without warning. Lacking a compass or other means of navigation, he got slightly off track, but eventually found himself near Shiganshina district, on the southern edge of outermost Wall Maria. He needed to eliminate the titans in front of the Shiganshina gate somehow, but he could not allow the walled people to see him emerge from his titan. Therefore, Grisha lured all nearby mindless titans away from the wall, killed them, and then proceeded to the gate on foot. He had planned to walk up to the gate, draw attention to himself, and hope that someone would let him in. He was surprised when he encountered one of the walled people riding around outside the walls on horseback. The surprise was mutual, but the stranger was kind and quickly ushered Grisha inside Shiganshina. The infiltration had gone more smoothly than expected.

Grisha's luck stalled temporarily, however. He had no choice but to feign amnesia, which led many locals to regard him with suspicion. How, exactly, could someone forget their past and accidentally wander outside the gate? His story wasn't very plausible. Grisha was thrown in jail while local leaders decided what to do with him.

Fortunately, the kind stranger showed up and advocated on Grisha's behalf. The stranger seemed to have some leverage over the local people, and they reluctantly set Grisha free. The stranger introduced himself as Keith Shadis and patiently answered Grisha's questions about the walled world. He explained that the people within the walls were living in peace, and that he was with the Survey Corps, who ventured beyond the walls to learn what they could of the titans and the outside world. Grisha was grateful to Keith and realized he could learn much from him. Keith, conversely, found Grisha fascinating, and found that talking to him was oddly calming. The two formed a fast friendship.

Soon after Grisha's arrival in Shiganshina, a large number of locals were afflicted by an illness not previously seen within the walls. It was clear to Grisha that he had probably spread it to them accidentally – having grown apart for a century, the people inside and outside the walls had probably encountered and developed resistances to different diseases. On the one hand, Grisha felt a little guilty. But there was a silver lining here: this was a perfect opportunity to gather samples from a large number of walled people so that he could analyze their local strain of dormant cancer. Grisha got to work curing everybody while subtly collecting the samples he needed. Grisha succeeded in saving everybody; not a single life was lost. His actions earned him the trust of the people of Shiganshina, and he decided to settle in Shiganshina while he worked on a cure for cancer.

For the next couple decades, Grisha served as the go-to doctor for the people of Shiganshina. Eventually, he succeeded in developing a cure for the walled strain of dormant cancer. He immediately planned a journey to the innermost wall to explain everything to the current monarch.

Securing an audience with the monarch was not straightforward, but neither was it overly difficult. Grisha attempted to enter the central castle through the front door, where he was stopped by the military police. He tried to explain to the police that he had vitally important information for the ears of the king only. The police paid him no mind, but reported Grisha's arrival to the nobility. Word eventually reached the true wall monarch – a woman named Frieda Reiss. Sometime during the last century, the monarchy had strengthened its operations security by installing a puppet king to serve as a figurehead while the true monarch kept a low profile. For reasons unknown to the police and nobility, Frieda decided to hear what Grisha had to say. Through the nobility, she instructed the police to bring Grisha to the Reiss family estate. Frieda led Grisha into a chapel and then underground, into an elaborate cavern that appeared to be made of transparent titan armor. Frieda explained that nobody could hear them here and asked Grisha to begin speaking.

Grisha surprised Frieda with his knowledge of the outside world. When he claimed to have a cure for cancer, she was excited, albeit skeptical. If this was true, her people could all be saved from their walled prison. While they were speaking, however, the rest of the Reiss family arrived in a panic – Wall Maria had been breached by a colossal titan. Grisha and Frieda were both aware that colossal titans shouldn't exist naturally. If a colossal titan had really breached the wall, then the walled people were under siege by the civilization on the British Isles. They must have determined that the walled people posed a threat – perhaps they had detected unusual solar activity and suspected that a second titan apocalypse could occur in the near future. Grisha implored Frieda to use her mind control powers to fight back the titan invasion. He could cure everyone's cancer and neutralize the threat of another titan apocalypse – nobody had to die!

Frieda had to make a choice. One option was to trust Grisha, fight back the invasion, identify the titan shifters behind the attack, and try to reason with them. Her other option was to acquiesce to the decision of the outer world's government for now and remain passive until she had more information. She chose the latter option – she did not know Grisha, and although his knowledge of the titans and the outside world was unusual, she did not know whether his cancer cure actually worked. Also, the God Emperor's brain control powers were, by now, fairly dilute. Frieda had had success in erasing the memories of individuals, but she did not know whether she could control the actions of even a single mindless titan. She was not confident in her abilities, and as such, trying to fight back the titan invasion would be unwise.

Frieda's decision did not sit well with Grisha. His family was in danger, and possibly already dead. He had not worked for decades on a cure for cancer just for things to end up like this. In a rage, Grisha performed a titan shift and attempted to steal the God Emperor's mind control powers. Had Frieda been able to use her mind control powers effectively, she'd have defeaeted Grisha easily. Instead, her inexperience led to defeat. Grisha killed Frieda, obtaining the mind control powers in the process, and then attempted to kill all witnesses before fleeing. Only Frieda's father, Rod Reiss, escaped.

This was a problem for Grisha. He had hoped to retrieve his family, retreat within Wall Rose, and take his time mastering the God Emperor's mind control powers in preparation for an eventual counterattack against the titans. The military police probably would not remember much about him, and the nobility had not even seen him. But a member of the royal family had escaped and would no doubt send their best forces after him. Hunting down Rod Reiss to kill the last witness wasn't an option because this would potentially result in more witnesses. In theory, Grisha should have been able to use the mind control power to fight off the monarchy's hitmen – but he had little idea how to use his new abilities, and he didn't know the capabilities of the monarchy's personal forces.

After a few moments' deliberation, Grisha decided that the first order of business was to make sure his family was safe. He departed south for Trost district, where survivors from Shiganshina would presumably be taken. Once there, he hurriedly began looking for his family. He learned that his wife had died, but found his son, Eren, and adoptive daughter, Mikasa, alive and well. Grisha had an idea: being of noble blood, albeit faintly, Eren should be able to achieve partial control over the God Emperor's power. The monarchy was probably hot on Grisha's heels already, but they did not know about Eren, and drawing the connection between the two of them would not be easy. Grisha led Eren away from the city and into the nearby woods.

Ideally, his final moments with his son would have been happier, but there was no time; he did not know how much longer he could evade the monarchy. Against his son's objections, Grisha injected Eren with a mindless titan serum and waited to be devoured. Grisha spent his final, terrifying moments convincing himself that what he was doing was for the greater good. In time, Eren would learn how to use his powers. Eventually, he would fight his way to their basement in Shiganshina and find Grisha's journals with information about the outside world and his cure for cancer. That knowledge could be used to save everyone within the walls – his son would be the one to bring about lasting peace.

But for Grisha, this was the end of the road.


End file.
